An exploration of all things sitcom
As a lover of sitcoms, I decided to carry out my data collection on various factors that I would think are important when considering the overall quality of any given episode. My goal was to perform a deep dive investigation into the various factors that impact the success and the perceived quality of a sitcom. The following report is my attempt to fulfill that goal. It explores a variety of factors, including a possible ‘confound’ in my perception of episodes, the effect of longevity on a show’s quality, the typical themes explored in episodes, and the main focus of episodes.
The Confound of Father Time?
First, I wanted to see whether my own judgement could be swayed depending on what day of the week it was.
I was somewhat surprised by just how unsurprising these results were. Completely subconsciously, I seemed to find episodes funnier on Fridays and Saturdays - days I tend to be in a better mood - than on any other day, and more funny than I would typically find an episode in general. The results from Sunday and Monday were unexpected to me, but are not implausible. I tend to be in the worst mood on Sundays, as I dwell on the week ahead, and slightly happier on Mondays, as I am at least one day down through the week. It should be noted that the results from Thursday are not at all reliable, given that they are based on just one episode and this episode was uncharacteristically serious for the show in question.
I think it’s really interesting that the way we judge a TV show can be influenced by something as simple as the day of the week. Considering how resounding the results were regarding my obvious bias on Fridays and Saturdays, I may genuinely take this on board and only start new shows on Fridays and Saturdays in the future!
Do Shows Overstay their Welcome?
A common sentiment among fans is that even very good shows can come to ‘overstay their welcome’. I wanted to see whether this was true, using both my subjective opinion and the more ‘objective’ measure of critics’ scores, and to see whether this effect could be show-dependent.
I think there are a few interesting takeaways from this graph:
- The median score does not really seem to change across seasons, for either show and using either metric. The one exception to this is critics’ median rating of Brooklyn 99 episodes, which visibly increases in Season 6 compared to Season 1.
- The variability in my scores is much larger than the variability in the critics’ scores. Whereas the box plots of my scores tend to have a high degree of spread, those for the critics tend to be highly compact.
- For Brooklyn 99 episodes, my spread of scores is centred slightly higher for Season 1 than for Season 6; however, my favourite episode out of those sampled comes from Season 6. For critics, the opposite trend is true - that is, their scores are centred higher for Season 6 than Season 1.
- For Modern Family, while the median values of my scores do not differ largely between seasons, there is a very obvious change in the spread of my data, where the spread of my scores is centred much higher for Season 1 than Season 6. The same trend is true for critics, but to a less extreme extent.
Overall, it seems as though the idea of ‘overstaying one’s welcome’ is quite show-dependent. For Brooklyn 99, critics seemed to think that the show became better over time, and I also found that the show never quite ‘nailed’ an episode until later in its run. For Modern family, however, both critics and I found the episodes were more likely to be worse in Season 6 than Season 1, implying the show was indeed running out of steam the longer it went on.
What’s it All About?!
Next, I wanted to know what sitcoms episodes are most often about - are these shows simply mindless comedy, or are they deeper than that?
The top 10 most commonly occurring words shown in the graph seem to suggest that there is indeed depth to the themes of sitcom episodes. The most common word, “others”, suggests that themes often centre on how to treat other people. Anecdotally, this definitely sounds accurate. Similarly, other common words include “new” and “beginnings”, suggesting that episodes about learning how to cope with change or new situations are also common in sitcoms. Finally, the other most commonly occurring words “love”, “loved”, and “accepting” further imply an emotional depth within the themes of sitcom episodes. However, it should be noted that, considering my sample size of 51 episodes, none of these words truly occur that commonly, with the most common word occurring in only 6 episode theme descriptions. Additionally, some of these words may represent double-up episodes - for example, based on the words in the graph, it is plausible to conclude that “doing your best” is a common theme. As such, episodes focused on more emotional topics seem like they may be the exception rather than the rule.
Overall, from this graph, an appropriate conclusion is that sitcoms certainly do not avoid deep themes, but they are not entirely touchy-feely – at the end of the day, after all, they are still comedies.
Wit or Warmth – What’s the Focus?
Finally, as a little bonus, I wanted to confirm the findings I inferred from my last graph – that sitcoms are more about comedy than they are emotion.
I think this graph indicates two interesting things: first, the funniness ratings have a much more obvious peak than the emotional impacting ratings, and second, the spread of the emotional impact ratings is much larger than the spread of funniness ratings. I think the peak of the funniness graph ultimately indicates that funniness is the most important element of what makes a sitcom successful, as episodes are genuinely funny for the most part. With this in mind, it does not seem surprising that a large portion of episodes are not particularly emotional. However, I do find it interesting that it was more likely for an episode to receive a 10 for emotional impact than for funniness. As such, I think this graph very much backs up the findings I inferred from my third graph: funniness is generally more important, but that does not mean that individual episodes cannot have a lot of heart.
In conclusion
Overall, I have learned a lot about what influences the quality and structure of an average sitcom. From the time of the week the watcher watched, to the season, to the theme, to the balance between humour and emotion, there is a lot that goes into how a sitcom is perceived. I’m very glad that I was finally able to perform the sitcom deep dive I always wanted to perform, and to have emerged with findings that I genuinely find interesting.
